


Fratres

by titC



Series: The Fortnight of Latin Titles [1]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: "I Need The Eggs" Easter Fic Exchange, Bit Silly, F/M, Gen, Linda is awesome even when she’s offscreen, Lucifer can be a little shit, Nail Polish, Names, bit bible-y, everybody loves Trixie, fluff and puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 06:36:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10634313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: For the "I Need The Eggs" Easter Fic Exchange.Spring, new love, and new hopes.Also, puns.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CloudXMK](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudXMK/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this!  
> I tried to stay as close as possible to the characters and interactions requested, but I _may_ have twisted your "cross" prompt a wee bit ;-)

Occasionally, and contrary to what many would have believed, Lucifer did work for Lux apart from entertaining guests most nights. He didn’t have as much time as before to count the broken glasses, order more alcohol, pay suppliers, and draft contracts for his employees; but he still liked to keep a hand in it. Lux was, after all, his and Maze’s best project; and Leigh, the woman who did most of this stuff for him these days, knew to let him keep in touch with the inner workings of his beloved club and check all was to his specifications, even if she knew them herself like the back of her (one) hand.

However Lucifer, being Lucifer, was easily distracted by a song in his fingers demanding to be let out or the taste of a liquor he hadn’t had in a while; and so he kept wandering from the piano to the bar to the files he’d set on a table. That’s how he was spending his early afternoon, since Chloe had banished him from the station. She’d said it was so she could do her paperwork more efficiently than she would otherwise, what with him pestering every other detective in the precinct or trying to help and being a general nuisance as she claimed he often was. He thought he could be perfectly well-behaved, but apparently even when he sat down to fill in some form it wasn’t good enough; for some reason doodling on official police documents was a big no-no.

All in all, he really hadn’t been expecting anyone; and that’s why his brother’s arrival was quite the surprise.

Especially that brother.

“Emmanuel?”

“Er, what is it they say? Yo, man?”

“Have you fallen on your head from up there?”

“I’m trying to blend in, Samael.”

“It’s _Lucifer_ , as you very well know. And no one’s saying that anymore. Haven’t been around much lately, have you? Not a lot of apparitions these days? Bit of a slothful mood?”

“I… no. I mean, I thought I’d see how you were. Er, settling. You know. Here.” Emmanuel rested his olive-skinned hand on the glossy piano, patting it gently and terribly awkwardly.

“I’m fine. What do you want? Father planning yet another way to mess with me?”

“No. I just… Amenadiel said I should ask you.”

“Ask me? Ask me about what?” He left his bench to head to the bar. “Drink? I feel I’m going to need one.”

“Er, sure.” He followed Lucifer and sad on a stool. “Nice place you got here. Good carpentry work,” he added after studying the bar counter.

“Yes.” He pushed something fruity to his brother. “So?”

“Well.” A pause for a fortifying gulp. “How did you manage to, er. Get your, um, partner to like you? Like _like_ you?”

Lucifer’s eyebrows were probably lost in his hair by now. “ _Like like_? What are we, 12?”

“Please?” All right, he did look pretty pathetic, to be honest.

“You spent more than 30 years as a human, if I recall correctly.”

“Yes, well. I didn’t know her back then, before I started having, ah, other stuff to do.” He was looking at his glass, at the glossy counter, at anywhere but Lucifer.

“And what, nothing for the decades before?”

“Er.”

“What?”

“Well, you know. I wasn’t really interested.”

“For 30 years. And then 2000 on top of that? What lit the fuse then? New arrival in heaven?”

There was a long, long sigh from his brother. “I never thought it would work. But then you did it, and you look happy, and Amenadiel said you could probably advise me.”

“That’s… well. We did get there in the end, true; but I don’t quite think…”

“Fine. But who else can it be, anyway? If I go see a human they’ll just have a mystical experience, and all our other siblings are clueless.”

“That’s… not entirely wrong. However, I can give you the number of my therapist, if you’d like. She’s in the know, hopeful she won’t get stigmata or decide to found a new monastic order.”

“All right. Still, I’d like to hear about you and your Detective.”

“She’s not _my_ Detective. She belongs to no one.” He frowned. He really didn’t like it when people assumed she was his woman. If anything, _she_ was the boss of him – and he loved it. Her.  It. And her. Fine, mostly her. “And I made her very cross with me several times, and she had reason to be.”

His brother frowned. “How did it change?”

Lucifer said nothing for a while. He’d made so many mistakes, but he wasn’t sure he could have avoided most of them if he’d been warned before anyway. He’d had to walk that path himself, to feel every nail in his flesh drive home what was most important. “Ah, well. Time, to know each other well; and… truth? Honesty, yes. It’s crucial. To get to trust and be trusted, is how she put it. You really should ask Dr Martin about these things, not me. I’m only quoting her, frankly; you should go to the source.”

“All right. And, um. What about… sex?”

Good thing he’d swallowed his mouthful of Calvados or he’d have spat it all out, and it was the good kind. Would have been a waste. “Ah, well. You’ll cross that bridge when you see it, I imagine.” He felt a grin widen on his face. “Don’t tell me you’ve never…”

“Well, you’ve always been the one to try new things first, brother.”

“Want to try and Fall next, to see how it feels? Curious about that too?” Right. Vodka might fit his needs better than Calvados. He turned his back on the Son of God, as humans said – capital letters and all – as if there were no other sons, no other children. As if none of them but him had ever existed. Hah. Damn, he’d have to order more, there wasn’t enough left to finish the week. Well, he’d tell Leigh, anyway. Or maybe she already knew? She kept a close eye on the stocks, after all. Where was his phone? He’d fire her a quick email right away, as soon as – ah, yes, here it was. He was about to open his mailbox when Emmanuel took it from his hands and gently set it on the bar counter.

“I’m sorry for what happened, Samael.”

“ _It’s Lucifer._ ”

“Both names are yours.”

“You don’t want to call me Lucifer, do you?”

“I want you to remember Samael, too.”

I don’t.” He snatched his phone back and finally sent that email. When he looked back up, Emmanuel still had that strange expression on his face; but he chose to ignore it. “So tell me about that prospective girlfriend of yours, then.”

“Of course.” His face softened. Even his short beard looked, well. Fluffier. “Her name’s Mary Magdalene, but she lets me call her Maggie. Just me, you know?”

Oh, bloody hell. His brother had it bad. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you, then.”

 

Emmanuel was rather surprised at the sight of a little girl on his brother’s knees, her tongue peeking out between her lips as she was doing something with his hands that seemed to require the utmost concentration. She turned her head when he settled on the barstool next to them.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hello.”

“Are you one of Lucifer’s brothers too?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Why yes, I am.” He looked up into Samael’s amused face.

“So are you an angel too? My mom said all of his brothers and sisters are special like Lucifer.”

“Eh, we’re family.” Please, no theology with the child. _Please_. “I’m Emmanuel. What’s your name?”

“Beatrice, but everybody calls me Trixie.” She twisted her head to look up at her personal seat. “Everybody but Lucifer.”

“Well, it _is_ a hooker’s name.”

“But no one wants to tell me what that means!”

“It’s… not a thing for little humans.”

“Will you tell me?”

“Maybe one day. Are you finished?” He carefully waved his fingers.

“Oh no, that was only the first coat.”

“What are you doing, Trixie?”

“I’m painting his nails. Duh.”

“But… what for?”

“Well he’s the devil, yes? So he’s go to have black polish, right?”

Well, if she said so. “I see.” Well, not really, but… “I, um. I wanted to talk with my brother?”

Said brother scowled at him. “She hasn’t finished.”

Wow. “Alright. So, um. How did you meet?”

“Lucifer is mommy’s boyfriend.”

“But you said he was the devil.” She blinked up at him, not understanding his point. “Aren’t you afraid of him?”

She giggled. “No! You’re silly. He makes me laugh and he saved me and mom too and I like him. He cheers me up.” She bent back over her task and ignored him after that.

“So, Emmanuel. From the number of shooting stars in the sky last night and the stupid grin that’s been on your face since you arrived, I assume things are well with dear Maggie?”

“They are.” He’d listened to Dr Martin’s advice, and… yes. Samael had been right; truth had worked – time, they’d already had, really. “Crossed that bridge and all.” Touching her had been even more exhilarating than when John had poured Jordan water over his head, really. Then, it had been like accomplishing his true calling, really starting on the path of Redemption for all of mankind. Terrifying and thrilling at the same time. But Maggie… Maggie.

“Well, good for you. It only took you 2,000 bloody years, after all.”

Trixie glanced up. “Do you have a girlfriend too? Is she a detective like my mom?”

“No one is a detective like your mother, spawn.” He peered closer at his fingers. “Are you sure about this? It’s really, well, shiny.”

“I borrowed Maze’s matte top coat too so it’s not shiny anymore when I’m finished.”

“Borrowed, huh. Good girl.” Lucifer beamed at the child, and she grinned back at him. It was both cute and disconcerting, Emmanuel decided.

Then he did a double-take. “Maze, Maze? As in, _Maze_?”

“Who else?”

“Oooh, do you know her too?”

“Everybody knows Maze, spawn.”

“She’s my best friend! And she has a really cool face too! She showed it to me when we went trick or treating last year. And when mom’s not home we watch scary movies together!”

“You’ve… seen her face?” The kid was friends with the devil and his head demon, and didn’t care a whit about it. She apparently _lived_ with the demon. Wait. “Samael, does her mother know?”

“Know what? Ah. Yes, of course. Pretty happy that her offspring is the best-protected child ever, I think.”

“And you take Maze’s things and she doesn’t mind?”

“Nope. She lets me play with her swing too, and she teaches me how to fight! Um.” She looked a bit guilty and suddenly her face shifted into something sad and big-eyed. “You won’t tell mommy, right?” Her lower lip quivered.

“Oh Father, what is she doing?”

“I think it’s called making puppy eyes, and it’s impossible to resist. I’ve tried, believe me. Spawn, we won’t tell her, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die. But she may find out anyway.” She wiggled on his lap and made him wince at one point, and finally threw her arms around his waist.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice muffled by his shirt. She turned her head just enough and winked at Emmanuel. Oh, she was a devious one. He could see why she wouldn’t be afraid of Samael and Mazikeen if she had them wrapped around her little finger like that.

“You do realize your mother probably knows already, yes?” He hugged her back. His brother was hugging a little human child. “She probably had a talk with Maze. You’re not throwing knives or anything like that, are you?”

“No, Maze said I had to be older for knives.”

“Well. Your mother _definitely_ had a talk with Maze, then.” He patted her back gently, as if she were made of bone china; and then caught Emmanuel looking at him. “What? Small humans are tiny and breakable, you know.”

“I’m used to children, Samael. There are plenty of children up home. I’m good with them.”

“Uh huh. Including the one you killed and brought back to life, right?”

“Oh please. Don’t believe everything you read in the Apocrypha! Besides, _y_ _ou’re_ not used to them in, er, down there, right?”

“Well, there are some. But they’re… well.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

They both watched in silence as Trixie returned to her painting. “Last coat now!” she announced.

“So, brother. Has your Maggie any offspring of her own?”

“Well, no.”

“Ah. Then it’s my own cross to bear, then.” Emmanuel rolled his eyes as Samael rested his chin on the little girl’s head and _definitely_ didn’t look like he was carrying a heavy piece of wood up a hill after a flogging, to be honest. He would know.

Just as she was finishing her meticulous polishing, Emmanuel heard the lift doors open, and out came Amenadiel and a slight blonde woman. As soon as Samael saw her his face was jut as full of light as in their younger days, albeit a different kind of light. It wasn’t their father’s grace, no; it was coming from inside of him. Entirely him. Emmanuel felt a pang in his chest. He missed Maggie, he thought as he rubbed the scar a spear had left long ago.

Trixie slid down to the floor and ran to her mother, who bent to kiss her head; and then jumped into Amenadiel’s arms. He settled her on his shoulders and she squealed when he did a few jumps and swayed a little, grinning like he was having the time of his life.

“Is this a ritual of some sort?”

“What?”

“I can’t believe he’s doing that with a human child.”

“Yes, well. He’s changed. A bit less of a stick in the mud, I suppose.”

“You both have changed.”

Samael ignored him. The woman had stopped in front or his brother, a little smile on her face; and he was looking – no, beaming down at her as if there was nothing, no one else in all of existence. Maybe there wasn’t, for him, in that very moment. She stepped on the barstool’s footrest and raised herself high enough she could kiss his forehead, and his brother the devil blushed. _Blushed_.

“Do I look like that with Maggie?” he wondered.

“You did every time I saw you two together,” Amenadiel answered from behind a box of Legos that the child had produced from her backpack.

They both watched Samael catch the woman’s hand delicately when she stepped down and drop a light kiss on her fingertips. Her eyes really were luminous when she looked at him. He could certainly see why he’d fallen – hem – for her. “Careful,” she said. “You don’t want to smudge Trixie’s hard work, do you?”

Samael shook his head. “Of course not.” He waved at him. “One of my brothers, Emmanuel. Detective Chloe Jane Decker.”

“Hello,” he said. “Happy to meet Samael’s ladylove.”

“Samael, huh. So that’s what it is.”

“That’s what – you’d never told her your name?”

His brother was glaring daggers at him. “Not my name anymore.”

“You let me use it.”

“You won’t desist. I know how to pick my battles.” She snorted from behind the bar, and he looked a bit sheepish. “You don’t sound surprised, love.”

“Why should I be?” She set some glasses on the bar and started rummaging under it.

“You knew Lucifer wasn’t his real… fine, stop looking at me like that, his only name?”

“Well, all you people have names with the same ending, so I assumed you had one too. Trixie!”

“The Detective is really smart, you now.” They watched the little girl take the two glasses, the bottle of milk and the bag of cookies her mom handed her and run back to Amenadiel. “She’s very good at her job. And she’s a very good parent to boot.” He looked so proud of her, too. Or, maybe, for her.

Amenadiel himself pouted a little at Chloe, but she only smiled innocently at him. “You’re not having any alcohol around my daughter. You get drunk too quickly, and I’ve seen you drunk.” She pushed a glass of something clearly brandy-like at Samael, and raised her eyebrows at Emmanuel. “What’s your fancy?”

“You really don’t have to…”

“Well, we can’t have him undo Trixie’s hard work, can we? I’m having some coffee, want some?” He nodded, and she fiddled with the coffee machine. “I made Lucifer get one of those. I can’t be drinking booze all day long myself.”

“Aw, but you’re an amusing drunk, Chloe.”

“I’m also a police officer and a mother and no, I won’t be your kept drunk woman.” She set the two coffees on the counter and walked back around the bar to sit next to Lucifer. “So what brings you here, Emmanuel?”

“Well, I came by a few days ago for some advice, and now I’m back to tell him how it went.”

“My brother here was apparently keen on going through the tragic star-crossed lovers routine with a human woman in heaven.” His wording deserved a sigh, and he got it.

“That’s sweet. What’s her name?”

“Maggie.” Just saying it put a smile on his face, really.

“Aw, Lucifer, look! He’s all smitten.” She slipped one hand under his arm and leaned against him.

“Well, she’s not as perfect as you, darling; but she’s nice enough.”

“Do you know her?”

“Well, I know Judas, and Judas knew her; so I had occasion to meet her memory, at least.” He kissed her hair. “Still doesn’t hold a candle to you.”

Emmanuel looked into the coffee dregs at the bottom of his mug, angling it this way and that to create new patterns. He wished he could see the future, tell them all would be well; but for now Samael was still banned from heaven, while Chloe… His eyes fell on the woman who’d been born out of a blessing, and then on her child. Trixie too carried something special. Different. Samael was too blinded by their light and his love to see it, and Amenadiel by his pain and resentment after falling; but Samael was forgetting his anger with them, and Amenadiel was learning to cope. Things would change. New beginnings, just around the corner. He could feel it.

And with Maggie, he himself was discovering new things. He’d thought he’d done it all, seen it all after his stint on earth, but he clearly needed to reconsider.

“I think I should leave you; it’s getting late. I have to get a few things first, and I don’t know where I can find some.”

“Brother dear, you can get anything right here in Los Angeles provided you have enough money. But as long as you cross every hand you see with, shall we say, 30 silver coins, you should be fine.”

“I think you might be crossing a line regarding the jokes, Samael.”

“That line is wafer thin, though. But I’m proud you’re at last getting into the spirit of it, instead of the spirit getting – ”

“Yes, fine. Fine. You win!”

Samael grinned and held out a piece of plastic after digging into his inner jacket pocket. “There, this should get you whatever you need. Money is the crux here, and this gives you access to plenty. Just don’t lose it, all right?”

“Thank you.”

“And don’t cross the streets when it’s not your turn, jaywalking is a crime here.”

“Amenadiel!”

“What?” Oh Father, didn’t their older brother still look as smug as ever, and yet there was more life and humor in his sparkling eyes than he’d seen in all the aeons before. He looked down at the child. “I think it’s time for me to take you to your father’s, yes?” He stood up and hauled her up with him before walking to Lucifer for a fist-bump and to direct twin satisfied grins at Emmanuel.

Her Lego Mars spaceship clutched to her chest, Trixie said her goodbyes and checked Samael’s manicure before pronouncing it ‘awesome’ and leaving with Amenadiel.

“You know he won’t let anything happen to her, yes?”

“Yeah, I know, Lucifer. I just feel bad foisting her on you, Maze, Ella or your brother.”

“I’m sure I can lend a hand too, on occasion.”

“Yes, well, we can’t have all the heavenly host queuing up to ferry the spawn to school and back, can we?”

“That would be a sight. My little monkey, surrounded by legions of angels…”

“She’s already got one demon, one angel and one devil for that, plus two police officers as parents.”

“Well, my offer’s still open of you change your mind. Ask anytime.”

Emmanuel shook Chloe’s hand and then stood in front of Samael for a few seconds, unmoving. His brother ignored him and focused on his drink.

“Samael.”

“Hm.”

“I’m leaving.”

“I know.”

Good Heavens, some things _really_ never changed. He grabbed his brother’s shoulder and turned him enough to hug him. He felt much stiffer than he’d been with the child, than he’d been back when they’d been young and carefree, back before he’d chosen to forego his angel name.

“Sa – Lucifer. I know you’ve made a new family here and you seem happy, but you know we’re still here, right? You’d be welcome if you ever chose to visit, brother mine. I’m sure of it.” He drew a cross on his forehead with his thumb, and kissed he same spot.

“I’m not the prodigal son.”

Emmanuel smiled but didn’t answer. He’d certainly never wished his brother pain, and whether it had all been deserved remained an unanswered question; but redemption and salvation were also there for him. He only had to accept it, and that was his own bridge to cross whenever he was ready.

He left with a last little wave to Chloe and Lucifer, and let his thoughts turn to Maggie.

 

“Emmanuel’s nice.” Chloe rested her chin on his shoulder. Such a light weight, and yet it was everything. “So can I call you Samael too? Or do you really hate it?”

“ _You_ can call me however you want.”

“I like ‘Lucifer’. Suits you. Has he got another name, too?”

“Well, you might know him better as Jesus.”

“ _What_?”

 


End file.
